


tales of nothing (and everything)

by Demeter



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Female-Centric, Gen, POV Female Character, a lot of random, genfic, my little corner of the world, plenty of feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-27 14:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demeter/pseuds/Demeter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories of Storybrooke, Fairytale Land, of life that is, life that was, odds, ends, and evens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snippets of ideas that may or may not be expanded upon in stand-alone stories. But here they are as they are. Tags are also for future parts.

_Go ahead and try. It won't work. No matter what you do, Snow White will have her happy ending. She and Prince Charming will be together. The curse will end. Good will win!_  
Henry Mills, “The Stranger” (S1.20)

 

* * *

 

In the end, Emma succeeds.

She waves her magic sword and the skies darken, the distant sound of thunder crashes and the bite of lightning chars the ground before her. The surety of the moment builds like a runaway train and Regina loses all color in her face. Her hands come up and twist in the jerky twitch of the already-dead and she attempts to stop a train with only her _hands_. But this is the end, Regina must feel it, she must know, because she stops.

She stops.

And Regina’s eyes turn away and they look at Henry who is so, so silent behind Emma and now Emma wants to _STOP_ , but the magic refuses to let her go, its tendrils have Regina now and they’re greedy, capricious things and magic always has a price.

The sword goes ‘round and ‘round and the moment sputters and slows down, and it’s between mother and son (and it’s not her, oh god, what is she doing, what has she done) and there’s madness and hate and _jesus fucking christ_ grief in Regina’s eyes and _oh no_ lovelove _love_ and regret and then she’s gone and _poof_ , magic, real honest-to-goddamn _magic_.

Emma wins.

And her feet are rooted, are stuck, are like cement. She can’t turn around.

She can’t turn to look at Henry’s face, to see the look on her little boy’s face as his mom disappears from Storybrooke and his words of childish justice come true. It's a fairytale ending; good triumphs.

And the Evil Queen is dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is vaguely AU, where at the end of S1, Emma somehow sends the Evil Queen back to Fairytale Land, presumably without power and to be killed. 
> 
> Partially derived from S2.01, where Henry seems genuinely frightened that his mom might die from the mob of angry FTL people who now remember what she had done. It also made me realize that Henry's pretty much a bitchy little kid, and yeah, that's how bitchy little kids act; they have no idea the potential consequences of the things they do until something actually happens and then they realize that the idea of 'good winning' in this particular story? It would mean Regina's fairly gruesome death.
> 
> Yeah. Consequences.


	2. to try is another word for failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there are a lot of 'once upon at times' and a lot of beginnings.

It’s an unsung part of the story now, but once upon a time, Regina tries to love Snow.

Snow is a beautiful, sweet child. She is naturally kind to everyone and everything. She weeps over hurt animals and always empties out her numerous pockets and purses for the impoverished and unloved. It is lucky there aren’t too many of the downtrodden in the King’s lands or she might have beggared the country before the throne even came to her white hands. The King is a fair ruler and does not allow his sorrow over his first wife’s death to turn potential to seed. Snow follows her father’s nature and her mother’s beauty and everyone in the kingdom adores their perfect little princess-doll.

The new Queen finds her almost deplorably innocent. Snow is gentle (and naive), loving (and spoiled), and above all, kind (and ignorant).

So in the beginning, she tries. Regina tries very damn hard to love Snow, because to not love Snow is to keep that fire of grief and searing hate alive. and those first few years are full of long, bleak nights where she remembers, over and over, and over, the sight of Cora plunging her hand deep into Daniel’s chest and wrenching his heart out. That might have been bearable. Perhaps. But it’s the image of Cora’s blissful _smile_ that freezes her and it’s hideous how that one single moment destroys all her happy memories.

It is hard to breathe, let alone hate.

(the King is some version of kind, perhaps; he never questions the fact that she shuts her eyes when he beds her and in a ghost part of her chest that still sputters, she knows he has come to love her in his own diminished way. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.)

Snow loves Regina back, because she thinks Regina loves her, because Regina is the mother she has wanted her whole young life, because Regina seems to be content, because she is simply a loving child and she doesn’t know how to _not_ love.

Time creeps by, but as the years grow, so does the blood on her heart. It hardens, turns vengeful and black, encases the once-beating flesh within a prison of its own making.

Regina looks down upon Snow’s happy smile and for each day that crawls upon her skin, she remembers more and more the look of disbelief on Daniel’s face as he stared at his red, beating heart in her mother’s fist. 

And, as fairytales might say, that was the beginning of the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regina played the long game in "Once Upon a Time" S01, but we also see that it took a long time for Regina Mills to become the Evil Queen in S02.


	3. the better to eat you with, my dear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For twenty-eight years, Ruby was free.

Here’s a secret.

Ruby has a bit of an unrequited crush on Doctor Hopper. He doesn’t really notice, she thinks, because he’s oblivious to how his kind and shy nature quickens her heart and fills her stomach with a low, humming throb. He doesn’t see her adding extra dollops of whipped cream to his waffles, or how often she stops by his table to refill his cup of coffee or that her tongue ties in two around him. She usually flirts with anyone who has two legs ( _anyone_ ) but to him, she can’t say more than, _isn’t the weather rainy today?_ or _how’s Pongo?_ and _did you see that new movie last week?_. It’s a little pathetic.

Here’s another secret.

She thinks Mr. Gold and Belle are kinda-sorta-maybe-really cute. He’s all awkward and stiff around her and she’s always a bit shy and uncomfortable around him, but they fit like those knitted gloves she made for Pe-- for that boy so long ago, her first try at trying to create something from yarn. Weird and comfortable. But Mr. Gold is still an asshole.

Here’s a third.

Even before the curse yanked the veil off their memories, she dreamed in smells. In the daylight, scents would set her off, whether the old-boy cologne that Doctor Hopper wore, or the sticky-sweet syrupyness of the diner. Even David’s musky, longing-for-Snow scent reminded her of apples and bridges, yearning and love.

Here’s one last secret. (and this one’s the worst)

Ruby wishes Emma had never come to town and broken the curse.

(and don’t that just beat them _all_ )

She had twenty-eight years where she is carefree, belligerent Ruby and in a blink of an eye, she’s _Red_ and _Wolf_ and half of everyone is scared of her and half of everyone else pretends her _condition_ doesn’t exist. And now she’s Ruby Red, a part-time leader in the town, already stacked on top because she happened to side with Snow and Charming before the Last War and The Curse.

Because now, now she remembers the sweet tang of Peter’s blood on her tongue, the feeling of sinewy muscles between her teeth, the heavy weight of his flesh in her belly.

And it’s delicious.


	4. the path most often walked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's easier to think upon the revenge of now, rather than the hope of some distant future.

Sometimes, when it’s very quiet and there’s no little girl trying to get her attention, or a king old enough to be her father giving her _his_ attention, she tells herself to leave.

She is allowed to make that choice, isn’t she?

To fly away, and to forget about Mother (gone) and Daddy (missing), the King and Snow. To let go of Rumpelstiltskin’s taunts and dump his book of magic into the deepest ocean she can find. She should seek Daniel’s beloved parents and give them a chance to say goodbye before she burned his body on a proper pyre. She should pull her finery off, the jewels and the crown, the silk and the fur; she should take Daniel’s ring and place it around Snow’s neck and remind her stepdaughter to always, always, _always_ believe in true love and to never settle for someone just ‘good enough’.

She could, couldn’t she?

She could use the magic she now has and weave a protective net around herself, around Daddy (if-- _when_ she gets him back), around the Kingdom. She could protect Snow from any future machinations of Cora. She could protect the wolf-girl who wears red, the faeries who see only dust, the daughter of a golden King, _oh_ , she could, could, _could_ even use her magic for _good_.

Regina could be the shield of the Kingdom, could show to all and sundry that she need not be a wife, nor a queen, nor a (false) mother. She could just be Regina. Only Regina.

It’s her choice, isn’t it?

But every morning, she wakes up and makes a different choice.


End file.
